Turkey blocks start of NATO bid talks for Finland, Sweden
TURKE has blocked the start of ATO accession talks for Finland and Sweden, ATO sources confirmed to dpa on Wednesday.
As a result, ATO’s governing body, the orth Atlantic Council, was unable to begin the planned accession process straight away.
Sweden and Finland formally submitted applications for ATO membership to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in an online video ceremony earlier on Wednesday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara was unable to accept a proposed enlargement of the alliance that would compromise ATO’s own security, reiterating his claims that Sweden and Finland were effectively supporters of terrorism for their alleged support of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK and the Kurdish People’s Defence Units PG militia in Syria.
Turkey considers the PKK and PG to be terrorist groups and sees them as existential threats to its national security, often clashing with them along Turkey’s border with Syria and Iraq.
The US, by contrast, works closely with the PG in Syria, considering it a key ally in its fight against Islamic State.
In response to a Turkish military offensive against the
PG in 201 , Sweden, Finland and Germany, among others, imposed restrictions on arms exports to Turkey.
Finland and Sweden decided to apply for
ATO membership following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and after a groundswell of public support in both countries accelerated the move.
ATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would assess the membership bid as quickly as possible, but stressed that the security interests of all allies have to be taken into account, referring to Turkey’s objections.
Turkey could use its ATO card to push allies to label the PG as a terrorist organization, while a clampdown on alleged PKK activities in Sweden is also on Turkey’s agenda, Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute, a US foreign policy think tank, told dpa.
Achieving its aims would not be easy for Ankara, however, Cagaptay said, as it already lacks solidarity among its fellow ATO members on the issue of the PKK and the
PG, according to Mustafa Aydin of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.
Ankara stood little chance of winning any major concessions as the latest
ATO expansion was already sponsored by the US, says former Turkish ambassador Ulu z lker.
Turkey had so far failed to produce concrete evidence of a PKK network in Sweden and Finland despite
a strong Kurdish diaspora with a strong political motivation in both countries, Salim evik of the SWP foreign policy institute in Berlin told dpa.
The US was unlikely to revise its position on the
PG, evik said, adding that a Turkish veto could avoided by granting Ankara certain concession, such as lifting the arms embargo.
Finnish and Swedish diplomats plan to travel to Ankara to discuss commitments on the fight against terrorism and potential arms deals, among others.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevl t avusoglu is scheduled to meet his US counterpart Antony Blinken in ew
ork on Wednesday, according to Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
Turkey considers the PKK and YPG to be terrorist groups and sees them as existential threats to its national security, often clashing with them along Turkey’s border with Syria and Iraq